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o p e n

CHARACTERS: Anne Cunningham
LOCATION: the kitchens
WARNINGS: Anne cursing like a sailor
SUMMARY: Anne attempts to make a sandwich, which is obviously not going to end well.
NOTES: In case you wondered, this is basically Anne cooking.

In the kitchens, there is the sound of loud, superfluous cursing. It's been going on for quite a while at this point, and the sound of it reverberates on the walls of the large kitchen. There are sandwich fixins set up around Anne, and she is attempting to put them onto bread, but keeps spilling everything everywhere. Each time she makes a mistake, she curses loudly and knocks something else over, which just leads to more cursing. It's an endless, painful cycle which doesn't seem to have any sort of happy conclusion in sight.

"God dammit," she hisses at the mayonnaise as she accidentally splatters some on the counter, and she grabs an eggs from the bowl beside her and smashes it over the pathetic attempt at a sandwich. Taking one long, defeated look at the sandwich, she scowls and smashes another egg on it.

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Firo had quite a few opportunities in his life where he could have easily lain down and died. The thought of actually taking advantage of them is chilling to him. But he had something going for him back then; a half-starved street kid with some close friends is better off than a half-starved street kid with no friends. Without the Gandors, would he have wound up like the people he's insulting now? He brushes the thought off with a firm shake of his head and a forced laugh.

"Hey, there's nothin' wrong with bein' a hard-ass. You're doin' 'em a favor if you push 'em to do somethin'." He doesn't mean it to be as cold as it sounds; sometimes it's enough to make people realize that somebody actually cares what happens to them. ...And then other times it's enough to bully and intimidate them. Whatever works.

It's easy, to think of all the ways she could have given up. Watching Firo curiously as he talks, she wonders if he ever entertained the same dark ideas, almost fell to the oddly comforting thought of just letting it all end. It's not something she'll ask him about, though. Ever. Things like that you don't just ask a person. She's been through enough to know when something is a subject you never bring up.

"I guess that's one way to look at it," she responds with a faint smile and a shrug. "And you kind of have to be a hard ass in my line of work if you're gonna survive. I'm guessing it's the same for you sometimes?"

Even Firo--whose curiosity frequently overrides his tact--wouldn't ask a question like that. Probably. At least not to someone who seems decent; he'd hate to make anyone think back to times like that. He'd appreciate Anne's restraint if he knew about it.

He laughs, "I'll bet. You don't deal with the easiest people, huh?"

"Definitely. Everybody who walks into that place would rob me blind if they had half the chance." He makes sure to be polite, but never merciful.

"Not at all. Sometimes I think there isn't a worse group of people in the world than in there. Not that they're all bad. Some of the best people I've ever known used to be prisoners. But they're not exactly the most fun people to deal with, as a whole." a sigh, and a small shake of the head. And then, a knowing look. Because she understands. "You've gotta be tough." She tells him, with a tiny nod that says she knows where he's coming from. "Or they'll do whatever you'll let them."

Tilting his head to the side questioningly, "Sounds like two extremes."

He returns her nod with a tired smile. "No need to tell me. People think just 'cause we can't go to the cops they can walk all over us. They'll even try and come back a couple years after they're banned and think we won't notice!" He shakes his head in disgust. To be fair, if there's one thing Firo's abnormally good at remembering, it's the faces of people who've messed with his Family or their business.

"I guess that's exactly what it is," she confesses, letting her back lean against the counter heavily and staring up at the ceiling momentarily. "It's easy to say they're all bad, but you've gotta give them a chance. My dad was a prison guard too. He always used to tell me that prisoners aren't prisoners, they're people. Maybe that made it easier, to see it that way."

"People do whatever they can get away with. You're smart to put your foot down. That's the only way not to get screwed over, that's for damn sure." She's not exactly sure what the specifics of those situations are, but she can tell that it must be frustrating. "I guess when you can't go to the cops you have to be your own law."

"That's a new way of lookin' at it." He's not being sarcastic. It's clear to him that prison guards view their charges as being something less than human.

"Yeah. People really think we'll just roll over since we can't go to the police for help." He shrugs. "You hafta crack a few heads every so often to keep things runnin' smoothly." That's probably not the best thing to say to someone in law enforcement...

"He had new ways of looking at everything." A sigh, and she gives him a long look before she looks away. "I've never met anyone else like him. Growing up with a dad like him... gave me a different perspective on a lot of things, I guess. Doesn't necessarily make the job easier, though. Actually makes it awkward." Because sometimes, it's hard trying to be the sort of person he'd want when she's a much darker person than she was the last time she saw him.

"I've cracked a few heads in my day," she says with a nod, understanding. "When you can't do to the law, you have to be</> ithe law. It isn't always pretty, is it?"

"Awkward?" If he thinks about it, it probably wouldn't make her too popular with either side.

If she hadn't already been honest so far, he'd raise an eyebrow at that. Victor, the one other person in law enforcement he's met who would admit resorting to violence, was pretty unique. And plain stupid, Firo would say. "No, it's really not. At least not to me." He knows a few people and has heard of more who enjoy it. It's probably part of the reason they're in the business.

"How often do you hafta do that? If you don't mind me askin'." Sometimes being the voice of authority just isn't enough, especially when you're working with people who may think they have little to lose.

"Yeah. Because he was just... well... it's just awkward." She doesn't want to go into it, not really. Doesn't want to divulge the things that she's done that made it difficult, made it awkward to go on trying to follow in his footsteps when she'd already strayed so far from what he'd want for her.

"Doesn't sound like it'd be pretty very often. Not in your line of work." There's no judgment in it, just a pondering tone. "At least you don't get pleasure in it. That's what keeps you sane. Keeps you from turning out like... like some kind of crazy sociopath."

For a moment, she feels guarded when he asks that, but then relaxes, takes a moment to think it over. "Really only a few times," she admits. "Sometimes, you can just use your training, or your words. But when it comes down to you or them, it always has to be them." She's firm when she says that. Firm in that belief. "If I was afraid to deal the first blow, I wouldn't be here right now. Not that I was ever in a habit of dealing blows at all. But a few times I've had to incapacitate the prisoners. No serious injuries, in the end. But it's still a touchy subject for prison administration."

He nods, letting it drop. By this point, he likes her enough not to press when it seems she doesn't want to talk about it.

He glances away, suddenly a bit uncomfortable that she's managed to touch on something that concerns him so much. "Exactly. I don't wanna be like that." It's something he's thought about often since taking in the memories of a particularly sadistic old man, fearing that those memories could corrupt him from the inside. Not that he's wholly innocent as it is.

"That's only natural." Most people put themselves first. And when it's you or someone who's hurt someone else, Firo wonders if that can even be called selfishness. "Touchy? I guess it would be. They don't wanna seem like the bad guys, huh?"

Anne appreciates him letting it drop, and gives him a nod that she hopes impresses that gratitude onto him without actually having to say it out loud. She can tell she struck a nerve by saying that, and she rests a hand on his shoulder briefly, looking at him hard. "And you're not like that. Whatever's happened to make you worry about that doesn't matter. Because you don't need to worry about it."

When he says it's natural, she nods, but grudgingly. "If I didn't, they'd attack the other guards. Prisoners attack guards more than you'd think. Though I guess to be fair they get attacked by their fellow guards, too." There's a bitterness to that statement, but it fades quickly because she makes it fade. "Exactly," she says, latching onto the less painful subject. "It all gets pretty fucking political. Admin lets guards who have to use force go up against the board more than they should because they don't wanna get their hands dirty. And these days using any kind of force is looked at like guards doing it are some kind of sick freaks. People don't consider what actually goes on inside prisons."

He nods back, smiling, though it fades when she touches his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks.” He forces himself to look at her; he is sincere about it, it’s just difficult for him to talk about something like this even with people he's known forever. “Really, thanks.”

He's too surprised to hold back a comment, even if it would probably be better to drop the topic. "Wait, you said guards attack each other?" He only saw prisoners attacking each other at Alcatraz, but he's not at all surprised to think of prisoners attacking guards. Guards against guards, on the other hand, is something he never considered. He'd be in hot water if he fought with anyone who worked beside him--not just from the higher-ups, but because it'd show a lack of unity and invite attack.

In response to her last comment he nods. "People like to judge, even if they don't know anything."

Body language is a complicated thing, and one Anne can't claim to be an expert at deciphering, but she can get enough insight from his reaction to that to know it's a big deal. And so she lets it drop, quickly, just giving him a quick nod in a response to his thanks. Because she has things she'd rather not talk about, too. She understands. "No problem."

It's impossible, really, to fault him for being too surprised to drop it. Especially because she knows it's not the kind of thing that really gets thought about, especially not when it comes to people like prison guards, people who are supposed to be on the right side of the law. "Yeah, doesn't happen a lot, but my..." she clears her throat. "I heard about a guard who got attacked by another guard at a prison in my state a few years ago." Anne can't bring herself to tell the whole story, especially right now. Grasping at the less intense subject, she nods. "Yeah, they do. Makes me feel like it might just be human nature, as shitty as that sounds."

"Seriously?" He wonders if the attacking guard had been paid off by someone. Or maybe the victim had been the one accepting bribes and the attacker was dishing out some justice. Or maybe it was just a quarrel. Firo knows people kill for a whole rotten cornucopia of reasons; and prison guards are just that, people. He shakes his head, but leaves it at that conclusion. If he knew how close to home the subject was, he would've dropped it sooner.

"Of course it's human nature. I think you could even say human nature itself is shitty." He laughs, "...Not that there aren't any good people out there. Actually, I've met a lot. A lot more than I woulda' thought, anyway."

"Seriously." Anne swallows, and looks away. She can't even look at him with the subject in mind, and she wonders if she was crazy to bring up the point in the first place. She must have been, she figures. What other reason could she possibly have to dredge up something so raw, so painful and personally affecting? Sighing, she lets it go.

"It really is. Makes you feel crappy about everything, doesn't it? Yeah, there're good people. More than I'd have expected with the way I do things. But the world's still shitty and people are still shitty a damn... listen to us. We've turned into a couple of cynical assholes. What happened to us, anyway?" she offers him a small smile, trying to keep her tone light like she's joking.

He smiles back. "Turned into?" As far as Firo's concerned, he's gotten much better in this respect. Or he was getting better before he was taken away from his friends and family.

"We could always blame this place, but I don't think I've actually met too many awful people here yet."

Anne actually laughs at that, giving him a surprisingly warm smile. "Good point. I guess I always was one. Can't really blame this place, either. I've gotten much better here than I was back home, if I really think about it. Back home, well..." a shrug, and she tries to be dismissive of it. Because she really doesn't want to think about or talk about the fact that if she ever left the Tranquility, back in her old world she'd be completely alone. The only person she really had left back home ended up here with her.

"Well, I hope I'm not bringin' you down." He says it jokingly, but, well, Firo can take being told to shut his mouth if he has a friendly enough relationship with a person. It's only the real jerks--or so he'd say--who he would hurt for making the same demand.

He tilts his head to the side as he thinks. "I guess it's always different for everyone back home. It's gloomy as hell here, but... it's weird. The people seem better behaved than back home." Which isn't to say that he likes the general population here more. He just doesn't see the same interpersonal crimes he accepted as normal back home committed as often.

"No, I'm not that easy to bring down," still smiling, she shakes her head at him. Firo is someone she likes enough to to not bother with all those complications like getting upset or anything like that.

"I've noticed that too. It seems like everyone knows there's nowhere to go. If we fuck up back home, there's always somewhere to run. Here, we're trapped. If you fuck up here, SEC grabs you and throws you in the brig. Not something I think anyone wants."

He smiles back. "Glad to hear it."

It’s very difficult not to look nervous when she mentions the brig, having a pretty guilty conscience and all. “I never thought about it that way… Thanks. That’s a real comfort.” The last part is loaded with sarcasm. He has no reason to make trouble, but even so he doesn’t like the threat of yet another prison cell hanging over him. He has enough worries already.

As much as she tries not to, Anne actually laughs in earnest at that, raising an eyebrow at him. "Comfort is my specialty, in case you couldn't tell," she jokes. "Well, as long as you don't cause any major issues you shouldn't have to worry about it, and you seem smart enough not to pull anything like that."

"Smart?" Oh geez. You might want to talk to him a little more before you say something like that, Anne. He laughs, "I'm not very smart, actually. But I'd like to think I'm not enough of an jerk that I'd cause trouble for the heck of it. Not in a place like this."

"No. No you're not a jerk." She takes a moment to just look him over, and then smiles slightly, contemplating on ruffling his hair for some reason. She doesn't. "You seem like a nice guy. Shame you ended up stuck in a shithole like this."

That was a very good decision on Anne's part, given how touchy Firo is. Nothing personal, but getting patted on the head isn't very gangster-y.

He blinks. Nice? Considering some of the things he's done, he wouldn't consider himself nice. He blushes slightly and ducks his head. "Oh, um... Thanks. I could say the same about you." It's good to have someone normal to talk to.

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